Grammarist is a professional online English grammar dictionary, that provides a variety of grammatical tools, rules and tips in order to improve your grammar and to help you distinguish between commonly misspelled words.

Omelet vs. omelette

For the breakfast dish consisting of eggs that have been beaten, cooked until set, and folded over,American publications prefer omelet,and this is the spelling recommended by most American English reference sources. In all other main varieties of English, the French spelling, omelette, is preferred.

These are the preferences shown in 21st-century edited writing, anyway. There’s no rule saying Americans can’t prefer the French spelling or that British writers can’t prefer the American one, and both spellings appear to varying degrees throughout the English-speaking world.

Omelet is not American in origin. The word has actually had several English spellings over the centuries—including aumulet, ammulet, omlet, and amelet, all found in the OED’s historical examples—and omelet first appeared as long ago as the early 17th century (before the U.S. existed). By the 19th century, however, much of the English-speaking world had settled on the French spelling. Americans went a different direction.

Examples

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Outside the U.S.

But the findings suggest that if you have diabetes, you may want to swap sunny side up for a whites-only omelette. [Globe and Mail]

This recipe is delicious using soft rolls, thin omelette and super-thin slices of prosciutto or ham. [Stuff.co.nz]